The Original Tudor

I've been listening - on repeat - to Horrible Histories' magisterial Glam Rock pastiche for Henry VII, the original Tudor. Here it is. 

Obviously, you like best the HH songs that match your preferred genre. This certainly matches mine. Visually and musically, it echoes the early 1970s Glam Top of the Pops performances perfectly. It is therefore amazing. Here are all the things I love about it:

Sound...

• The semi-spoken intro makes the same point about Shakespeare's plays that Thomas Penn did in his outstanding Winter King (2011),  
• It sounds primarily like The Sweet and Jean Genie era Bowie (the title is of course another Bowie nod). 
• Specifically, it voicechecks Steve Priest's falsetto from The Sweet  to give emphasis to the following rhyming couplet: 'The only way to end war and avert further disaster, there's got to be a way to unite York and Lancaster.' I have failed to explain successfully to the children why this is so amusing.
• The Sparks reference (at 1m56s. This town ain't big enough for both of us = this crown ain't big enough... for The Perkin Warbeck / Lambet Simnel)
• The Slade reference (at 2mins exactly, for slayed)
• The Mud reference ('That's right, that's right' is straight out of Tiger Feet - it's at 0m57s)

...and Vision 

• The whole blurred lit up 'graphics' can be pretty specifically dated to the early 70s and look like a) the stone age and b) The Sweet's 1973 Blockbuster Top of the Pops performance 
• The cutaway shots to the drummer and the driving guitars are both staples of performance shots from the same era, I just can't find them. 
• In fact the commitment to the 70s aesthetics is absurdly detailed. Even the audience of girls dancing is much shot for shot of era Top of the Pops.

And, most importantly, it's right. Henry VII is vastly underrated in popular history. Henry VIII, who in my view is a fat, sexually incontinent buffoon, captures much of the real estate of the popular imagination, and much of the rest is taken by the contrarian revisionist faction that supports Richard III (who doesn't deserve condemnation for his political murders, but does deserve it for failing to hold the realm together). Henry VII, with far less of a claim than Richard, succeeds. His political murders work. He's 'the man who closes the Wars of the Roses.' 

Far more of a risk taker than his glamorous son; far more ruthless than even that other master of political murder, Henry I; just as decisive on the battlefield as William I (if less epochally significant); one of a handful of English kings to really grasp royal administration. He's absolutely the best Tudor, and probably my favourite English King, not least because he - and I love this line above, is the one 'returning power to the State.' He is not the one you would want to drink with, but he is definitely the one you would put in charge of, well, anything.

Roots

I listened this to promising, but actually pretty bad, summary of women in Country music last week. It was poor for a number of reasons, not least because the presenter couldn't bring herself to call it Country, but instead referred to roots and Americana (I hate it when they do that), but it was mostly disappointing because it couldn't do its history properly. I find this is often the case when niche genres are discussed in music (though pop and rock bands tend to receive absurdly detailed excavations of their backgrounds and influences). This may be a small problem in genres I don't listen to, but it's a disaster for Country. There are few more self-referential and historically orientated genres of popular music. In this case, there were a few minor infelicities - there's no need to labour a plot precis of Ode to Billie Joe - and one big one: the airbrushing of the roots of Country music from a programme notionally about roots. 

Specifically, when introducing with one of Loretta Lynn's many great songs for women, the presenter made the big claim that she is 'arguably the cornerstone for all women of roots and Americana.' This is nonsense (and I love Loretta Lynn) and ignores the pre-1960 Country tradition. Where are Sara and Maybelle Carter? Where, most pertinently, is Kitty Wells? Her It wasn't God who made Honky Tonk angels was the first song by a solo woman to top the charts, in 1952. Here she is:

That song is a riposte to Hank Thompson's The wild side of life. By pure coincidence, in the same week, Bob Harris played them both. I've not listened to them together before and it's extraordinary, making a very good song into a powerful cultural statement. Bob Harris knows his history, most people don't. They should, and until they do, we definitely shouldn't give them a radio show about roots. Anathema.

It's not the side effects of the cocaine

I found this post very hard to write; I'm not sure I've done it justice. I don't think I realised before last Monday how much I would care when Bowie died. I definitely didn't imagine I would ever lay flowers at his mural, but I did. In a way, it's no surprise, I was obsessed by Bowie in my teens - he accounted for about half of all the CDs I owned at one point - to put this into context, I owned sixteen of his albums before a single one by Bob Dylan or the Rolling Stones. I adored him, and this was despite my teens coinciding with his prolonged creative slump and his ill starred foray into drum and bass. But I spent more of the 2000s excavating the roots of pop music than delving into modern experimentation, listening to people who grew up with Johnny Cash, not those who listened to Bowie. But when he died, I realised I remembered every album in far greater detail than almost anything else I've ever listened to.

I don't think I'm alone in that. I've read a lot of of the appreciation, and the analyses of how important he was and why. I note that you'd be a lot better off if you started reading about Wednesday because the first few days had some dodgy analysis in, by some people who clearly hadn't listened to everything recently either. There were pieces banging on about the 'Berlin trilogy' which only namechecked tracks from 1972-4 (As an aside, I find the term Berlin 'trilogy' lazy and inaccurate. Lodger has very little in common with the other two). But I'd also note that the devotees of Bowie didn't talk too much about all the the weirder, more experimental music they then listened to, but rather how much he inspired other acts, almost all of whom were closer to the mainstream than he. That's no bad thing. While the coverage repeatedly praised his uniqueness as an artist, they also point to the unique role in Britain we've accorded him. He was our accepted window onto the weird stuff; the acceptable face of the avant-garde.

Now no-one starts there, and the vision, brilliance and bravery to aim for that and deliver is extraordinary. Given the volume of the tributes, I don't have to do any detail here. I did like this by Dylan Jones (see the end) and I thought the Economist was typically judicious in a rare two page obit about where the real value is (I've mentioned this before). They had a lovely graphic as well. Even the inevitable from Fact to Fiction was mediocre, rather than typically terrible. It is also definitely worth listening to Mitch Benn's the Fat Pink Duke which we've repeated from last year. We should luxuriate in this level of coverage; we will only get this again when Dylan dies. None of it really explains why I loved him. For some, his being an outsider crashing into the mainstream made all the difference. I am obviously not an outsider, but I am very grateful that he brought the esoteric to pop and kept it there. I am very much in favour of the esoteric.

Most people aren't, which is why Bowie was so important - transgressive, inventive, endlessly curious. There is no comparable artist that took such a range of odd, weird interests and obsessions, made them central to their output, sold in the millions, and then changed everything because they got bored. There are plenty of odd people with strange interests. They tend not to be pop stars. They certainly aren't very successful pop stars. That's a testament to his artistic ambition, but it's also a testament to his charisma: that magnetic, shape-shifting personality and wonderful cleverness that remains on view throughout. And I think that's an essential component, because while the restlessness that made him search out ever more obscure new genres makes him fascinating to follow, it does make him exhausting. And no-one can possibly like it all. When I was first discovering Bowie (early 1970s version), he released Earthlings, which, although on a re-listen is nowhere near as unpleasant as I remember, is never going to be the genre for me. A friend of mine told me it was the only Bowie album he'd ever thought was any good. All pop frontmen are charismatic, but few if any attempt to get over that hurdle of proving yourself again every time. He was an exceptional man.

And he leaves a body of work that is genuinely special, affecting and wonderful. Others can and have said much about the fashion and the theatre and the rest, but the quality of the music is what everything rests on. After he died, I listened to everything (except Tin Machine - I've always been scared to listen to Tin Machine). Some of them I haven't listened to for a long time. Some were really bad, and there is no disguising that everything after Let's Dance just isn't as good as what preceded it - soberingly too, I realise now I am already older than Bowie was when that was released. But the volume and pace of output through the 1970s is still bewilderingly brilliant. For me, though Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust and Station to Station remain the obvious pinnacle, there is so much scattered around the rest in almost all his albums that it's a hopeless task to gather up the pieces. Better instead just to listen to them, and be very grateful that you can.

In the end, I think I loved him because I couldn't believe he existed. There is no way anyone would imagine that mix of cleverness, art and weirdness being transmuted into the music he made. I won't see his like again and I will miss him terribly; we all should.

The other Presley

When Andover-born Reginald Hall was searching for a stage name, he opted for one that looked very much like delusions of grandeur. He didn't care - and Reg Presley and the Troggs were born. He died yesterday and I've been playing them all morning. In truth, there are only five tracks that have stood the test of time, but what tracks. A world without Wild thing, With a girl like you, Any way that you want me, I can't control myself (all 1966) and Love is all around (1968) would be a much poorer one.

A world without Reg Presley would have been a much poorer one too. Despite his lack of chart success since 1968, he and the Troggs played on for the following four decades - only his final ill health ending it last year. Along the way his songs burst occasionally into public consciousness, Wet Wet Wet's version of Love is all around making him a fortune in the 1990s. He was also a proper eccentric, in a fine English tradition. Obsessed with UFOs, he spent the money he made on researching them, published here. There aren't many people who connect Jimi Hendrix (who also covered Wild Thing) with standing around in wet English fields looking at crop circles. Reg Presley may even be unique in this respect.

In the obituaries, he was called a 'very real person in a sometimes very unreal world.' That's a fine tribute, and a very fine one for a pop star. We should have more people like him, and now we've one fewer. Farewell.

The 20 best glam-rock songs of all time

Last week, the Guardian published a list of the top 20 glam rock songs of all time, as their response to the Tate Liverpool exhibition on the subject. I have at least four objections to it. Firstly, and this is only a quibble, the exhibition (and this list) only run to music between 1971 and 1975 so 'all time' doesn't really fit in. Secondly, it doesn't include anything by Gary Glitter because he's a paedophile. Some people have questioned the merit of Glitter's music, but I suspect that's not behind the exclusion of the electrifying Rock and Roll (part 2), rather this is therefore the best Glam songs not by someone convicted of interfering with children. Thirdly, nor does it include anything by Wizzard, ABBA (has no-one seen the Waterloo video?) or even the Bay City Rollers. (I retain my oft stated view that Bye Bye Baby, which is a song about the importance of marriage and helpless love, is far better and deeper than it's ever given credit for. I make no such claim for Shang-a-Lang). Finally, in an attempt to make Glam cool (which it isn't) they've added lots of more credible tracks in. I love Transformer from which Vicious is taken, but it's not a Glam album. 

So it's also a terrible list. I've made a better one below. This site also great, though I disagree about where they put the credibility line. Where relevant, I've put the Observer ranking in brackets and therefore have dropped off about half of their list  - in part for the reasons outlined above, but also because some of the choices are just wrong. For example choosing Bowie's Queen Bitch above Starman smacks of trying too hard. Anyway:

1. David Bowie, The Jean Genie [7]
2. Sparks, This Town ain't big enough for both of us [17]
3. Wizzard, Angel Fingers (A Teen ballad)
4. Roxy Music, Virginia Plain [4]
5. David Bowie, Starman 
6. Slade, Coz I Luv You 
7. Mud, Rocket 
8. ABBA, Waterloo. 
9. Alice Cooper, School's Out [3]
10. Slade, Cum on Feel the Noize [8]
11. T Rex, Children of the Revolution 
12. David Bowie, Suffragette city
13. T Rex, Get it On [11]
14. Sweet, Blockbuster [14]
15. David Bowie, Rebel Rebel [18]
16. The Bay City Rollers, Bye bye baby
17. Gary Glitter, Rock and Roll part 2
18. David Bowie, John, I'm only dancing
19. Alice Cooper, Elected
20. Alvin Stardust, My Coo-Ca-choo 

Near misses for Chicory Tip, Son of my father and Roxy Music, Do the Strand. Note I've excluded anything by Queen or Elton John for the sake of definitional ease. And I've also excluded the two major Christmas classics by Slade and Wizzard. They would chart highly.

Just Say Gnome!

In 1990, during his Sound + Vision tour, David Bowie invited fans to vote for what he should play. Inevitably, someone ran a campaign to get one of his 'embarrassing' early works, The Laughing Gnome, on the list. Voting was then scrapped in what I think was a regrettable lack of a sense of humour (an unusual one, look at this) and of proportion.

A similar lack of proportion, though in reverse, seems to have attended the publicity-explosion of the last few 

weeks about the surprise release of where are we now. I mean, it's fine, isn't it? I just don't think it merits the reception it's gotten. And nor is this the first time this has happened: in fact everything that Bowie has put out since at least 1999, when everyone said Hours sounded like Hunky Dory, which it doesn't, has had the same treatment. Perhaps everyone's just so relieved it's not Tin Machine again. That's a shame, because it diminishes the original achievements in his golden period running from 1970 to 1983 (you can dispute both ends). It's not that the recent albums aren't bad, many tracks are good, they just lack the sense of risk, innovation and plain madness that characterised him at his pomp (and indeed afterwards, I'm no fan of Earthlings, but it shows the same restlessness). It's certainly true that since 1999 he's eliminated the tendency to put out something awful, but it comes at a price - he's lost that sense of adventure. Not surprising for a man in his sixties. 

But in his pomp, he was extraordinary. He released more than an album a year in the 1970s (useful list here). And all of them (Pin Ups aside) are great, and different. To have followed it at the time must have been amazing, even in retrospect, it's jarring, but exciting. Above I noted that Hours doesn't sound like Hunky Dory, that's because nothing sounds like Hunky Dory - it's a odd, affected record, but it's brilliant, packed full of gems as well as the classics. I remember getting it, it was one of my CDs and it unlocked Pop for me. I then bought most of the rest. You can take your pick, but I'd single out Ziggy Stardust, Station to Station and Diamond Dogs as the best. At one point over 40% of my CD collection was Bowie. 

Anyway, there's a nice retrospective here (hat tip to Elliot), though it misses out The Laughing Gnome.

Hear this Robert Zimmerman

I've had several goes at this this week, but I kept changing my mind. And now it's late. The tagline by the way is the opening line from probably the best song about Dylan, Bowie's Song for Bob Dylan, where he compares the voice with sand and glue (as such, it's therefore not an  invocation for the great man to read this blog).

Anyway, Bowie's song was written about forty years ago, and I had constructed an elaborate theory on the bike to work on Monday about Dylan's reputation being essentially solidified by a relatively small number of songs - i.e., we'd be reading the same articles about him if his body of work was much smaller, provided it had the key tracks in (this, by the way would be true of any artist). This article is helpful for this theory, because it essentially says, Dylan is great because of:

• Blowin' in the Wind (1963)
• A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall (1963)
• It Ain't Me, Babe (1964)
• Visions of Johanna (1966)
• Mr Tambourine Man (1965)
• Subterranean Homesick Blues (1965)
• Like a Rolling Stone (1965)
• Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

But I've been listening to Dylan all week, and come to the considered conclusion that that's nonsense - like some of the inexplicable other evidence in the Independent article (writing Tarantula (#20) is not a reason for  greatness - rather the reverse). In fact, while the best ten Dylan tracks stand up against the best ten from anyone else, actually it's the vast depth of his output that makes him great. So, that's not a bad list above, but it's just too short. I've no intention of writing a full list of what you would need to capture most of the reputation of his Bobness, but here are the obvious ones missing for me:

• Masters of War (1963), which has probably his best ever line - 'you've thrown the worst fear that can ever be hurled [and it's the hurled that makes it so good], the fear to bring children into the world'
• Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues (c.1964) - because everyone forgets that Bob is often funny and still is (see also the recent Po'boy 'called down to room service, send me a room'
• Only a pawn in the game (1964)
• Bob Dylan's 115th Dream (1965), which is a personal favourite, rather than an absolute classic. I can remember where I heard it, and it's sense of fun is infectious
• It's all over now, Baby Blue (1965). When he famously went electric at Newport, everyone talks about the electric set, but this is the final song, when he was persuaded to do a acoustic song. The version is available on one of the bootleg series and that version is chilling
• I'll be your baby tonight (1967); Drifter's escape (1967). John Wesley Harding is overlooked as a album, but it's a classic and the final track is the best of the lot, a low-key love song filled with gentle energy that has always remained with me, while Drifter's escape is filled with  mischievous fun, and always a pleasure to listen to.
• If you see her, say hello (1975). Just one of the saddest, loveliest songs ever written. Overshadowed by the pyrotechnics on rest of the record, but more impressive than the rest of them in the long run.
• Hurricane (1976). A superlative protest song a decade after he was supposed to have stopped writing them
• Honest with me (2001). I've always been confused by the inexplicable popularity of Time out of Mind, which to me has always been a mess of too-much-listening-to-jazz, while the follow up Love and Theft is a much better record, deft and assured, and this is a great thumper of a track.

This is a spur of the moment list, so I've obviously missed plenty off. A quick check of my most played tracks suggest in reality I should give space to Positively 4th street, Chimes of Freedom, My Back Pages, Love minus zero and Can you please crawl out your window ahead of some of these. So give them honourable mentions.

However, like Dylan, I'm in favour of these things being done quickly (like his records) and reflecting the vision at one point in time, not a long drawn out thought process. So, while there's more to be said here, others have said it. I simply wanted to show is that we could take away a sheaf of his greatest achievements and we'd still be celebrating the 70th birthday of a man that could go toe to toe on reputation with other popular music figures. With them, he's unassailable.

So, a belated happy birthday Bob, and thanks for everything.

The love that dare not speak its name

I went to the Cambridge Folk Festival on Sunday. It was brilliant, and I've spent most of the week listening to Kris Kristoferson, who headlined, and buying CDs by the Carolina Chocolate Drops who are my new favourite band, or more accurately my favourite new band.

But, and this is very small but, these are country artists. Kristoferson lives in Nashville and is Country royalty and the Drops are really old style country - banjo, fiddle, jug and occasional kazoo - not folk. It's not worth getting overexercised between the distinction between the two genres genres, they in many ways overlap, and I think it's one of those areas where, as the man himself said on my version of Me & Bobby McGee, 'if it sounds country, that's what it is.'

Not that we say this in England* - viz. the 'folk' festival. Somewhere our collective consciousness got stuck with rhinestones, line dancing, and bad check shirts (and Billy Ray Cyrus' ill advised haircut), so admitting to Country tends to be met with surprise if not horror. Where, against their better judgement, mainstream opinion does find it likes country, then we tend to adopt one of three overlapping tactics :

1. Adopt another term (see Americana, usually used to describe Johnny Cash's last albums), but a cursory look at the people involved reveals its obviously country and in fact the official definition has it as 'based on the traditions of country'.
2. Consider it ironically, ideally with obvious country elements downplayed, see Dolly Parton
3. Put it in another genre, see Folk above, though many other things have been tried. Gram Parsons coined the phrase 'Cosmic American Music' which mysteriously never caught on

But these are nonsense: Cash is always country; listening to Dolly Parton's My Tennessee Mountain Home, Please don't stop loving me, or Daddy was an old time preacher man should put to bed any notion that she exists in a camp vacuum; while everyone files Parsons under Country now, though they add a hyphenated 'rock' to it (which, listening to his cover of the Louvin brothers’ Cash on the Barrelhead, feels slightly optimistic).

And I love country, though inevitably not all the more modern manifestations of the genre. Done right, it includes not only some of the most poignant songs of loss ever recorded (Haggard’s Long Black Limousine or Kristoferson’s original Sunday morning coming down – in fact, ideally as I heard it on Sunday), but also the most uplifting (I defy any anyone to listen to Lester Flatt’s Roll in my sweet baby’s arms or Emmylou Harris’s New Cut Road without smiling) and even indeed funny (Kinky Friedman’s honky tonk They ain’t making Jews like Jesus anymore being my personal favourite). Nor is it – as it is often accused of being - parochial of limited in range or topics. I’ve yet to hear a better charting in music of the changing role of women than Loretta Lynn’s string of 1960s hits (Take for example One’s on the way juxtaposed with The Pill); Cash’s Bitter Tears takes swipes at Custer, the American icon about the same time the Beatles had graduated to saying that the Queen was a ‘nice girl’). And some are simply beautiful both the string of famous hits, but also the obscure like the Flatlanders’ Bhagavan Decreed. And I’ll be burying my mother to the Carter Family’s Will the Circle be Unbroken. I’ve noted the ones that leapt into my mind above, but I could repeat the exercise many times over, and I’m not sure what other genre I could do the same.

There are many reasons for this, and now isn’t the place to cover them, though it’s worth noting that Country also, like folk, places a high premium on the repeat and the cover. I have endless covers of several songs, and this gives it a texture that most modern music lacks, though classical has the same benefit of depth, though to an even greater degree. I’m broadly conditioned to like things that do this, and this is no exception. It's epitomised for me in Waylon Jenning's Are you sure Hank done it this way - where the modern star compares his life to that of Country greatest son. Unfavourably it would seem, though quite how even Jenning's self-destructive life comes out worse than Williams I am not sure. Nonetheless, this strong streak of conservatism, which also manifests in a broader range of political opinion that the soft left of pop, is core to Country and helps make it great.

Do you think we could reflect that in festival naming please.

* And it is only England. One of the joys of the iPlayer is that I can go beyond the single hour long Radio 2 Country offer and tap into larger and more interesting offers from Northern Ireland and Scotland who seem much more interested in the genre

Everything louder than everything else

I'm in the middle of a glut of cultural activity at the moment, as a coincidence of tickets etc seem to have come in at the same time. Last night I went out to see The Dog Roses play in Kennington, which was great fun. It's times like this when you realise that you are blessed in London with an abundance of cultural activities - I've just booked Richard Thompson in Feb to complete the picture.

However, at the risk of sounding old before my time, they were loud, though by no means as loud as other bands I have seen. They were playing in a pretty small room and they weren't very far away so I feel they could have turned it down a little. Their interval act, a man who has been listening to a lot of Dylan (not that that's a bad thing), managed to easily fill the room without any amplification. Now, clearly they are meant to be louder, but do we really the fiddle to amplified to such a degree.

Of course, this is not a new development, and the loudness war (I'm delighted that this is its name) has been knocking around for a while and has been bemoaned by many. I notice it more now that I have an iPod, when the contrast between old and new recordings is striking. It's also pretty much impossible to listen to some tracks on a busy train as they are simply too quiet, though these are mostly spoken word or the like.

However, it's a little hypocritical for any of us - as consumers of amplified music - to really complain about this development, when the real gripe remains with classical aficionados. Amplification robbed a massed orchestra of the title of being the loudest music act one could seem and now, a handful of boys with electronics can outdo a large collection of classical instruments. (I always this record was held by the Who, but apparently no longer). However, I do think it has got worse and shops and pubs have become complicit in robbing spaces of quiet.

So, consistency forbids the anathema, but I still wish people would just turn the music down a little.

Another pointless list

London has a plethora of free magazines and papers, most of which have no merit other than that they are free. Thursday's magazine is Shortlist, which takes approximately 2 minutes to read, but does have a lot of lists.

I like lists, but they do have a habit of revealing my increasing distance from contemporary life. I was struck by the list at the back of this week's edition which listed out Moby's top ten tracks to exercise to. Here they are:

Led Zeppelin, Immigrant Song
Rolling Stones, Gimmie Shelter
Public Enemy, Fight the power
Pantera, War nerve
The Clash , White Riot
Black Flag, Thirsty and Miserable
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The Mercy Seat
New York Dolls, Trash
Thelma Houston, Don't leave me this way
X, Sugarlight

Obviously, I haven't actually heard of about half of these, but I don't even understand the logic for the ones I have. What pace do you jog along to the Mercy Seat? Regardless, here are my current favourites, though I spent my Monday session in the gym exercising to Noel Cowerd, which isn't normal, even for me.

Fairport Convention, Cajun Woman
Waylon Jennings, Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way
Creedance Clearwater Revival, Born on the Bayou
S Club 7, Don't stop movin'
Kylie, Your Disco needs you
Rolling Stones, Carol
Sparks, This Town ain't big enough for both of us
Rolling Stones, Happy
Chicory Tip, Son of my father
Bruce Springsteen, Born in the USA

Only the first four to six are truly key; the others fluctuate in and out. There are some vaguely (only vaguely mind) fashionable modern tracks bubbling below my top ten, but they're just not as good.

All that Glitters...

I haven't done very well at keeping this ticking over recently, but I thought I would summon some words on the fall of Paul Gadd.


I have the now dubious distinction of having been to his 90s Christmas concerts on no less than two occasions, and they were great: gloriously silly and over top pantomime pop, with some great tracks. To this day, I remain very fond my Best of Gary Glitter (well about half of it, he wasn't that good) - and I defy anyone to listen to Rock 'n' Roll (Part 2) without a glimmer of a smile.*


But it's all over now. And it's sad. While he may not deserve any sympathy (and I'm not sure about that) we (certainly I) have lost something. When someone who occupied a rather splendid, frivolous and joyful part of our cultural life turns out to be something different, there is a sadness and a sense of innocence lost. And I want know how long this all went on. His first child pornography arrest was 1997. Was he clean up to then, or has this been a recurring activity? For obviously reasons, I know I would like the former to be true.

The whole think also highlights our approach to paedophilia in general, which is hysterical and unhelpful. The coverage hasn't been particularly edifying, which is surprising given how perfectly it was all parodied seven years ago by Chris Morris.

But in some senses, we shouldn't be surprised. We've always been rubbish at this. The term itself is difficult, partly because people don't understand the word, and partly because it confuses prepubescents with older teenagers into the same category, when clearly they are not. And the violent thuggish pronouncements of this kind of site only divert attention from the real issues. I found the account of Roger Took's activities provoked a far more visceral feeling of horror than any amount of Glitter-baiting or ranting.

And for something to find me on the side opposed to ranting means it must be serious indeed.

*As an aside, this puts me on the side of the 'Art independent of morals' camp - no surprises there I suspect. What might be is that some time you have been able to do courses in it. Why?

Leonard

Leonard Cohen played the O2 yesterday night. I dragged Anna along, though she did protest and only listened to most of the albums that day, but she is now very glad I did. For it was a joy to behold.

He may be in his seventies, and he did introduce the band during every bloody song, but he was brilliant. Almost all the performances were great, save a slightly disappointing Democracy - the standout being a stunning Hallelujah. And he spoke and joked with charm that made the O2 feel like, well, a smaller 20,000 seater venue than it is. It was fab.


I think this was the setlist (I've stolen it, but it chimes with my recollection)

1. Dance Me to the End of Love
2. The Future
3. Ain't No Cure for Love
4. Bird on a Wire
5. Everybody Knows
6. In My Secret Life
7. Who by Fire
8. Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye
9. Anthem
10. Tower of Song
11. Suzanne
12. The Gypsy's Wife
13. Boogie Street
14. Hallelujah
15. Democracy
16. I'm Your Man
17. Take This Waltz
18. First We Take Manhattan
19. Sisters of Mercy
20. If It Be Your Will
21. A Thousand Kisses Deep (spoken)
22. So Long, Marianne
23. Closing Time
24. I Tried to Leave You
25. Whither Thou Goest

The O2 was pretty good too; the only problems being a grim tube ride home and then the discovery of a murder on our doorstep (though we only realised this later).

I'm off to buy Cohen poetry which I shall probably regret; and part of me wants to go again in the Autumn.

Notes from a pedant

I'm not very good at keeping this up to date. I rarely have anything to say. In fact as I get older I notice that I have less and less news. In the last six weeks I can think of little of personal news (Christmas doesn't count) other than a very expensive phone bill from India, where Orange have very expensive charges -bastards (it is a lot cheaper in France). I really ought to know better, given where I work.

Anyway, this post isn't about roaming, but it is vaguely linked, in that it is a comment on technology. Actually it's not about technology either, but a pedantic point about music categorisation, occasioned by my iTunes and its inability to distinguish albums from CDs . It is made more irritating as I spend much of my day job writing about convergence (at the moment mostly for this).

As an example, consider as I am sure many of you will be able to do, the career of the Bonzo Dog Doo-dah Band, one of my personal favourites. The best compilation of their work is to be found on a rather splendid (and very good value) three CD set called the Cornology. I dutifully loaded up onto my computer which cheerfully told me I had three albums, except I don't. There are clearly six albums on these discs (two to a CD) and it has taken many minutes to disentangle the album from CD onto my iTunes. When we can store all my music on the tiny piece of hardware that is my iPod, I don't see why this cannot be dealt with automatically. Similarly, albums spread over two CDs are not two albums. It isn't complicated.

I know it's a pedantic and anal point, but it has been irritating me for months. It cannot be that hard to fix. By the way, the new Bonzo's album is worth every penny and more. Buy it.